


Crimson Ghosts

by theredhoodie



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe: The Winter Soldier, Angst, Black Widow - Freeform, F/M, Post-Movie(s), The Winter Soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: Illya Kuryakin is the Winter Soldier. Gaby Teller is the last remaining Black Widow. Both chewed up and spit out by great Mother Russia, can they find their way back to their humanity and each other?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I apparently hate myself and came up with the idea to mix Bucky/Natasha with Illya/Gaby and this monster was born. I'm quite pleased with the emotional impact and I hope you'll like it too!

**March 23, 2016 – 0900 hours  
** **Washington DC**

Gaby pulled her hair back in a ponytail, the chestnut locks sweeping against the back of her neck. The sun shined down and warmed her, though the heat didn't quite reach her bones. She always felt…chilled. There was nothing she could do about it and had learned to live with it long ago.

The nation's capital was a world of peace and tranquility as it shook off the remnants of winter. The atmosphere did not last long. There was a sudden ripple through the wait staff at the café as the news report sparked up on the television inside.

"There's been some sort of attack," someone exclaimed.

"Right in the middle of the city!"

"Are they after the president?"

"My boyfriend works in that building," another whispered with a tremble.

Gaby stood up from her table, leaving a five dollar bill under her coffee cup for good karma. She walked inside and took in a few snippets of news as quickly as they were released:

"Unknown, masked attacker…police are trying to evacuate civilians…unknown number of injured…unknown target."

There were too many unknowns for her to feel comfortable. Wordlessly, she slipped onto the street. Without a spark of regret, she snagged a motorcycle someone had left the keys in and headed toward the area of action.

She was _supposed_ to be on a holiday, but how could she not intercept this sort of situation? The agent in her, the _good_ agent in her, wouldn't let it slide. The police obviously weren't prepared for this. No word of the president was spoken, so the Secret Service and SWAT weren't involved.

Gaby zipped around clogged roads and easily followed the sounds of gunshots and chaos to the scene. She left the bike on the sidewalk and surveyed the situation.

Three SUVs, one overturned, but seemingly intact—bullet-proof—while the other two were in worse shape. Grenades, Gaby thought. There was someone inside the intact SUV. She couldn't see, but it was obvious that whoever it was, was the target.

There were some screams as gunshots rang out again. Gaby's eyes followed the sounds and she watched with fascination as a man jumped from an overpass down onto an abandoned car just yards from where she was hidden. He was tall, a massive mountain of a man, dressed in all black, with a stride like a prowling wolf as he walked down the hood of the car and landed on the asphalt. There was a mask covering his entire face.

Gaby saw a flash of metal as he reached for the weapon across his back.

_The Winter Soldier_ , she thought. They'd met once before, eleven years prior. She had the scar to prove it.

Steeling herself—she wore no body armor—she grabbed one of her hidden guns, for she never went anywhere without one, and shot in his direction to get his attention. One of the bullets cut through his shirt and _pinged_ against his shoulder.

"Shit," she hissed, ducking behind a parked car and readying herself. She took a deep breath and, her nerves and mind calmed, pushed out any and all distractions. She listened for his footsteps and once they crunched over broken glass, she stood up quickly and shot across the roof of the car.

The Winter Soldier lifted his arm in time to shield against the bullets. His eyes were dark and emotionless behind the mask.

Gaby ducked and slid her gun under the car as a distraction so she could launch herself over the vehicle. She had much more finesse than to _tackle_ him; she was as graceful as a stalking panther. She knocked aside his machine gun and wrapped her legs around his neck, using her extra weight to off-balance him.

She heard in the back of her mind the sounds of armored trucks arriving to save whoever was in the SUV. She continued to be the distraction. This was what she was good for.

Her elbow came down on the back of his neck and she tilted him enough so he had to brace for impact against the side of a car with his metal arm. The _unknown_ was too much for Gaby. Readying herself for his backlash, she squeezed her thighs together just enough so that when he grabbed her jacket and yanked her away, his mask came with her.

She hit the ground hard and rolled, gasping for breath. Struggling to her feet, she squinted across the two yards between them, the mask laying between them like a gauntlet

Sirens and screams in the background faded out as her eyes fell upon the face beneath the mask. It was no stranger to her, and the memories flooded her mind like a tsunami. She took a step backward, feeling a physical response to the wave.

"Illya?" she breathed out. She had his face imprinted in her mind for as long as she lived. She couldn't believe she forgot it for all of those years and vowed to never lose it again. Even beneath the long and uneven hair, the jaw that hadn't been shaved for days, she knew that it was _him_. "Это ты? " _Is it you?_

He stood there, surrounded by smoke, towering in form. She should have been terrified, but fear was the last thing she was thinking of right now. His brow furrowed, but his eyes stayed blank and cold. "Какой ещё Илья?" _Who the hell is Illya?_

Too stunned, she watched as he dashed away, a nightmare come true. How could this have happened? She didn't even follow as he ran off to try to salvage the job. A policeman ran up to her minutes later, startling her. She whipped around, slamming her hand against his throat and kicking his groin out of instinct. He collapsed and Gaby shook her head. Realizing what she'd done, she glanced among the few faces around her and bolted.

On the television back in her hotel room, the news was all about the attack, about the success of the assassination of a high-ranking member of the CIA. If she had it in her to feel guilty about allowing a man to die, she would have. Instead, she was overwhelmed with memories. Even just being in a hotel room was enough to send her over. With the TV still on, she walked to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes in her wake. She had bruises and a few scrapes from the fight.

Silently, she turned on the faucet and didn't wait for the water to warm up before stepping in. Her body ached from more than just the fight. The emotional weight dragged her down until she was sitting at the bottom of the shower, the water pounding on her neck and swirling around the drain. She willed tears to come, but they didn't, and she sat there, arms wrapped around her knees until the water got so cold her teeth chattered.

Stepping out, she once again looked in the mirror. Her face was the same. She hadn't aged since she'd been taken. Neither had Illya. Had the universe planned this? What was she supposed to do now?

The answer was easy: she was going to save him.

**March 23, 2016 – 1200 hours  
** **Unknown Location**

"That could have been a disaster."

The Soldier's ears were muffled, his senses dampening as to put all of his energy to his mind. It was not a blank slate, it was scuffed and scratched, no memories, just the details and expectations of the mission—which he accomplished. Then why was he questioning?

"Are you listening to me?" His handler, Josef Kerchenkov, leaned down in front of him, forcing the Soldier's attention onto him.

He said nothing, but his typically hard eyes waivered. "There was a woman there," he said, his native tongue falling from his mouth with an ease that didn't come when he spoke other languages. "She knew me."

"Nonsense." Kerchenkov brandished a hand. "Impossible."

The Soldier sat back in the chair, staring off at a blurry point beyond his handler.

Kerchenkov looked from scientist to scientist to guard, the other men in the room. They all kept their faces stony. He sighed and put his hands on his hips. "This woman—"

"I…remember her," the Soldier interrupted, a frown wrinkling his brow.

"No," Kerchenkov said forcefully. "You do not." He lifted his hand, palm flat, to strike a blow, and some sense, into the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier was not supposed to question or object he was merely a tool, a toy soldier to _do,_ not to think.

With an unfocused eye, the Soldier moved his left arm, his and not his at the same time, quicker than his handler could move. He caught Kerchenkov's wrist in his powerful grip, causing fear to flicker across the Americanized Russian's eyes.

"Let go of me," Kerchenkov said, his voice shaking slightly. "I command you, Soldier!"

The guards pulled their weapons. The scientists backed away.

The Soldier stood. "Weapons down, or I kill him," he said flatly. The guards hesitated, but Kerchenkov told them to do it. They kicked them over toward the chair. "Up against the wall."

The guards and scientists faced the wall closest to them. Kerchenkov tried to grab for something, anything close enough to strike with, but the Soldier grabbed him by his throat and slammed him down in the chair.

"You can't do this," Kerchenkov choked out.

The Soldier frowned. The chair, _this_ chair, was where everything went wrong. It was pain and darkness and afterward he was thrust into the light again, unaware and confused, his mind putty to be taken advantage of.

Why couldn't he remember anything?

"You should not have done this," he said, grappling for something, _anything_ , tangible in the recesses of his mind. He buckled Kerchenkov in so he couldn't move, broke his ankle with a sickening crack when his handler tried kicking out. The room was filled with painful gasps. The scientists' knees were shaking like tree limbs in the breeze.

"Who am I?"

Kerchenkov shook his head. "You will not get away with this."

The Soldier leaned down, crushing Kerchenkov's wrist with his robotic arm. The man cried out. "That is the wrong answer." He pulled down the restraint that held his head down during his sessions. It didn't quite fit Kerchenkov, but it was tight enough to hurt.

"You can't kill me," Kerchenkov said, his voice holding onto its steadiness only just.

The Soldier swept one of the guns off of the floor and shot dead the two guards and two scientists within seconds. Placing the gun on the small metal table next to the chair, he met Kerchenkov's eyes.

"I will."

Seeing the dire abyss of his situation, Kerchenkov resorted to begging. "Please. I'm not worth it. I can give you the names of the people who did this to you. Don't kill me."

The Soldier picked up a thin metal object with a hook on the end. It looked like a dental instrument. "These names…you will tell me?"

Kerchenkov nodded vigorously. "Yes. Yes, please. I will tell you, and you'll let me go? I won't tell anyone about this. I'll play dumb." His words came out in a long, stringy babble.

The Soldier sniffed and tossed the weapon, catching the pointy bit in his palm. "You'll give me the names," he said, leaning close. He dragged the less pointed end of the rod down the side Kerchenkov's face.

Without hesitation, he named names, about a dozen of them, all Soviet in sound and most in the motherland. There was no need for torturing.

"Now," Kerchenkov gasped. He was shaking and sweating. "You'll let me go, right?"

The Soldier shrugged. "I need one more name."

"I…I told you all of them! I swear!"

"Not one of those names. What is my name?"

Kerchenkov gulped. He knew the answer, the Soldier could see it in his eyes. "I don—"

The pointed end of the rod pressed against his jugular, almost piercing. "Do not lie to me," the Soldier said through gritted teeth.

"Illya! Illya…Kuryakin."

Without a thank you, the Soldier shot his handler point blank between the eyes.

_Illya_? That woman's voice echoed through his mind. She had been a fine fighter. He suspected that her shock mid-fight was far from her usual way of doing things. She _knew_ him. Kerchenkov had no reason to lie. She knew him, and he must have known her.

He had to remember. He had to find her.

**May 4, 2016 – 1700 hours  
** **London, England**

Gaby was still on holiday. She knew that she wouldn't be able to focus on anything Waverly assigned her unless she found Illya. She wasn't sure how it would happen or what would come after. Would his memories come back? Hers had, but she had no idea what he had been through. Maybe it wouldn't be as easy as just _remembering_.

Shaking her head, she nibbled on the end of a pen in a London apartment she rented under one of her aliases just in case. After the assassination in Washington DC, she hadn't been able to find the Winter Soldier. She used her connections—more illegal ones than just what Waverly had his hands on—and went through every instance in history where the Winter Soldier was mentioned.

There was no real pattern besides the fact that there was always a dead body by the end of the report. Without thinking, Gaby rubbed the scar on her abdomen through her thin shirt. She had a few scars—her accelerated healing helped with scarring—from wounds too shocking for her body to bounce back from, and the one on her stomach now had much more of an emotional punch.

It had never occurred to her that Illya—her Illya, her partner, the love of her life who showed up out of nowhere and changed her world completely—could still be alive. Solo was gone, Alexander as well, anyone she'd ever known during her younger years was gone. Illya had disappeared during a time of war; everyone had assumed he had been killed.

How could she not have known? How could she not have _felt_ something?

The answer was simple. It was because she was too busy being tortured and brainwashed to feel or remember anything.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, she tossed the pen across the table and stared unseeing at all of the files and blurry photographs spread out in front of her.

The only things she knew for certain were that the Winter Soldier was Illya Kuryakin, his handlers and the organization responsible for him were presumably still headquartered in Russia, and she hadn't heard a peep about him in forty-two days. It could be years before he reappeared again. According to the files, he had only been seen a dozen times in the last fifty years. Granted, there were probably countless unrecorded Winter Soldier expeditions, but Gaby was going off the evidence she had at her disposal.

"This is never going to work!" she growled in frustration. She dragged her hands through her hair and piled it on top of her head, tying it there with a band from around her wrist.

Needing a break, she grabbed one of her three cell phones, her keys, and some money from the counter in the kitchen and headed out. She'd just pop by the store on the corner for something to eat and to give her mind a break.

The air was crisp and refreshing after being stuffed in her apartment for most of the day. She checked her phone as she walked. There was a text and two voicemails from Waverly. Shaking her head, she sent him a quick text ( _Still looking. Back in action by June._ ) and left his voicemails for later. If it was something serious he would have called on another phone.

Halfway around the block, she heard the sounds of fighting. Not gunshots and weapons, but floundering, drunken sounding punches and grunts. Frowning, she peered into a small alley between two brick buildings. What appeared to be a homeless man was fighting against three relatively young men, who were laughing and kicking the man.

She narrowed her eyes, about to step in when one of them swung a leg back for a kick to the face and the homeless man moved. He was fast. He hand jabbed out and grabbed the kid's foot, yanking him so he fell hard on his back with a painful sounding crack. The others hesitated as the homeless man stood, deceptively tall, and took out the other two kids with such resounding swiftness that Gaby almost missed it. The boys lay groaning in a pile and he still advanced on them.

"Wait!" Gaby yelled, jogging down the alley. "Stop!"

She knew those moves, she knew that shape.

The first to go down had gained his breath and dumb wit back, kicking out against the standing man's kneecap. The man let out a painful hiss as Gaby got to him.

"Leave!" she nearly snarled at the three young men. They dragged themselves down the alley as she turned her attention elsewhere.

"Illya," she said softly, approaching him like she would a wounded animal. He was crouched down, one of his gloved hands resting against the asphalt, keeping him upright. She moved slowly, bending down until her knees hit the ground and tentatively reaching out a hand toward his hooded face. "It's okay," she cooed in English.

She waited to make sure he wouldn't attack her before pushing his hood back. His face was dirty, his hair was long, and his eyes were no longer the dark pools of emotionlessness she had seen back in DC. He looked confused, terrified, very much like an abused animal. Anger burned in her belly for him.

"It's okay," she said again.

He frowned, his eyes coming to focus on her own. "Chop shop girl?" he whispered.

Her breath caught in her throat. "Illya," she breathed out, putting her hands on either side of his face. "Come back to me."

**October 13, 1964 – 0500 hours  
** **Prague, Czech Republic**

They traveled separate from Solo, as to not break their covers. He would be arriving later in the day, while their flight from Prague was set to leave at 5 in the morning. Their cover, as all of the handful of U.N.C.L.E. missions had been, had the two of them acting as a married or engaged couple, since it would stop any questioning of a woman traveling alone in Europe during this time of worldwide upheaval.

Needless to say, both Gaby and Illya were exhausted. Their cover would hold until they got to England, so Gaby took advantage of it and resisted sleep with her head on Illya's shoulder in a nearly empty terminal. Not many people were flying out of the capital this time of day, but there was a small passenger plane that was stopping off here for fuel before heading to London that suited their needs.

She didn't even notice that all of the lights went out until Illya stiffened. Through her sleepiness, Gaby opened her eyes to darkness.

"What happened?" she asked sleepily in English.

"The lights," Illya said quietly, standing up. She couldn't really see him, but she could hear the rustling of his fabric.

She was about to ask if that was normal when someone grabbed her from behind, a hand clamped over her mouth. She instantly struggled and listened as Illya was also attacked in the shadows. At least three men fought Illya, but he was cornered and angry and _Illya_ , so she didn't worry about him. The man who grabbed her was joined by another who yanked her right out of her seat. She bit down on a finger and heard a curse in Russian.

The struggle seemed to last for hours, but it was merely minutes before the lights slowly turned back on, dim as the bulbs had to warm up.

Gaby could see Illya now, but he wasn't moving and two men in masks covering their faces had him by the arms. She called his name and strained against the man holding her back by her arms. Blood trickled down Illya's temple and he groaned, his eyes flickering open.

"Get off of me!" she exclaimed fighting even more as the men spoke harshly and quickly. She couldn't keep track of it all—she had only been learning Russian for a year—but it couldn't be good. They started dragging Illya away, his heels dragging on the floor. Panic seized her heart. "Illya!" His name ripped from her throat the same way it had when he tumbled down that cliff in Italy.

The man holding her slipped his arm around her and the other boxed her ears. The pain was outstanding. It pushed the air out of her lungs and her vision blurred.

Hours later, when she awoke in a hospital, a pit of guilt settled in her stomach. Solo was by her side. Waverly, too. They discussed what happened and prepared to move back to London. Once it was just Solo, Gaby broke down, angry tears dripping down her face.

"It's my fault," she said sadly.

"And how is that?" Solo sat next to her, his face hard to read.

"I wasn't able to fight! I could barely hold off one man and they took me down so quickly." She clenched the hospital blanket in her hands.

Solo reached forward and put one of his hands on hers. "I wouldn't worry. Our Peril is a tough man. Whoever took them will get more than what they asked for."

**May 4, 2016 – 1800 hours  
** **London, England**

Illya ate like a starved dog when they got back to Gaby's apartment. Neither of them said a thing. She spent the entire time trying to hold herself together. She was a spy, she was one of the best Black Widows and the only one still breathing—keeping her emotions in check was second nature.

But this was an entirely different situation than any she had ever been through and the types of emotions that came with it were difficult to sift through.

Once he was finished eating and patted his bearded face with a napkin, she decided one of them _had_ to say something. "You remember who I am."

He nodded slowly. "Gaby. I gave you a ring once." He almost smiled, the puzzle pieces of memory not creating a full enough picture for him to get a full image of who she was. He only knew that she was important to him.

She, however, couldn't help but smile sadly. "You gave me many rings," she commented, crossing her arms and rubbing her upper arms with her hands, fighting off the cold that bit her bones. "How did you…how did you end up in London?"

"I have been looking for you. When I saw you and you recognized me, something changed. I have looked for you."

He had been searching for her just as long as she'd been searching for him? The realization almost brought tears to her eyes. He had gotten so close, within a block, of finding her. Had he been waiting to gather courage before he spoke to her, or had he just not been able to find her in the slums of the city? She shook her head, it didn't matter; he was here now, he was found.

Noting her hesitancy, he stood. "I can…I will clean myself up," he said, motioning toward the bathroom with its door ajar.

She hadn't really been bothered by his dirtiness, but if they wanted to get anywhere, a shower and new clothes would probably be a good place to start. "Go ahead," she nodded. "I'll go out and get some clothes for you. Just stay here." She didn't say it, but she could use a moment to breath, a moment to figure out what she was going to do with the Winter Soldier in her safe house, what she was going to do about the people that did this to him.

She waited for the water to turn on before she sat down on the couch, her posture slumped. She ran her hands over her face and dragged her nails across her scalp, pulling out the loose bun on the way. What on earth was she doing?

Clenching her hands into fists, she grabbed her wallet this time and headed out, locking the door behind her. She tried not to get distracted by the fact that Illya Kuryakin was currently in her home, talking to her and remembering things. Her heart felt almost as broken now as it had been when she lost him in Prague. Surrounding it, however, was a thick shell in which anger and vengeance brewed: she was going to find the people who did this to Illya and make them pay. She figured he would be by her side to do the same.

It steeled her resolve and she rushed to the outlet store nearby before they closed.

**November 20, 1964 – 1400 hours  
** **U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters**

"Nothing!" Gaby exclaimed, tossing down a folder marked CONFIDENTIAL and throwing her hands into the air. "A month and _nothing_."

Across the table, Solo scratched his jaw and sat back in his comfortable chair that he insisted on bringing everywhere with him. "You said the attackers were Russian…well, there's a lot of Soviet land out there, and we're in the middle of a war, Gaby," he said, trying to remind her of the world around them while keeping her hopes up about finding their partner.

"I know, I _know_!" She slumped down in a hard wooden chair with thin cushions and buried her face in her hands. "Anything can happen in a month, we both know this."

He stood and walked around the table. "I know." He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it lightly. "But we haven't stopped looking, and we won't stop looking until we find a lead. I promise you that."

She smiled at him sadly and stood. "I need a break. I'm going for a walk."

"Would you like some company?"

Gaby shook her head. "No, but thank you, Solo." She paused, kissed him on the cheek and left the room. She grabbed a jacket to fight off the chill and buttoned it up to the top. "I'll be back soon."

"I'll keep looking while you're gone!" he called after her, leaving him alone in the room.

Stepping out into the night almost instantly made her feel better. The offices were cluttered and stuffy with too-warm heat. A bit of coolness helped clear the cobwebs from her mind. She knew that if someone stared a problem for too much time, the answer would just get farther and farther away. As hard as it was, she had to distance herself from finding Illya, even if it was for short bursts.

She knew the streets around the U.N.C.L.E. home base well enough that she didn't pay attention where she was walking exactly. She just walked. It was still light out, but barely, and there were many people around, coming home from work, running errands beforehand, and whatever else the normal populous did around this time of day.

Illya was so much _more_ to Gaby since their first mission together. They'd gone to Istanbul, Kiev, America, France and then Prague. There was more than a year for them to get close to each other in all the ways a partner could be construed. It had to be inevitable in a team so small.

She missed his strong, silent presence. Surprisingly, he always managed to bring calmness to stressful situations. That didn't mean that he also scared her with the intensity of his outbursts, but even during them, she never felt scared for herself—she was just worried about how he would manage through it afterward, what he would think of himself.

Gaby was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't register the screeching tires of a car nearby. She didn't have time to react before someone put a cloth over her mouth. Her struggle was short lived. She blacked out.

**May 4, 2016 – 1900 hours  
** **London, England**

Gaby came back into her apartment slowly and quietly. The door was still locked which was a good sign. She worried the whole way back if Illya would be here when she got back. She closed and locked the door behind her for good measure.

"Illya?" she said softly into the dimly lit place. She poked her head around the corner and found him sitting at her dining room table, looking at all of the files she had of him. "Oh," she said softly, putting a hand to her mouth.

The "oh" was for her carelessness of leaving that information out. But it soon covered a much larger range of things when her eyes fell on his left arm—or rather, what had once been his left arm. It was no longer flesh and bone, but metal from shoulder to fingertips. Angry red scars branched off of it and over the flesh toward the middle of his chest and back. An ache settled in her bones from the thought of having a metal limb rather than one of her own.

"This came back first," he said, waving his fleshed hand over the table. "The newest memories, I think."

She cleared her throat and nodded, putting the bag of clothes and supplies on the table. Aside from men's clothes, razor and hair clippers, she had gotten a bunch of other random things as to not cause total suspicion. She pushed those aside and took tags off of loose pants and a long sleeved shirt. He was wearing just a towel now.

"The older the memory the harder it will be to gain it back," she said softly, setting down the razor and the clippers.

He looked from her to the things on the table. She had gotten everything he would need, which stirred something in him. He wasn't accustomed to be looked after. He was too harsh for that.

Taking the underwear and pants, he disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared a moment later wearing them. They were a little short but he had combat boots left over from his Winter Soldier uniform that would hide his ankles.

"Thank you," he said as she handed him the razor.

She tried to smile but only resulted in the slight upturn of the corners of her lips. "There's cream behind the mirror. I'll cut your hair outside after." She felt like she was giving him orders and almost took the words back, but he relented and disappeared again, though he left the door open.

With the sounds of the sink going and blades scraping across skin in the background, Gaby organized the mess on the table, hiding all evidence of the information she had been scouring over. It was still a marvel that he had somehow found his way to her after all of her hours of searching each day.

Grabbing her encrypted cell phone, she was about to hit Waverly's number but paused. This was a momentous moment for the both of them. She had found the Winter Soldier and he happened to be Illya Kuryakin. There were memories to find, mental wounds to heal. She didn't need to run off and tell her boss what was going on just yet. It could wait a few days at least. Besides, she already told him that she wouldn't come back until June.

Once Illya was fresh faced, he returned to the living room and Gaby motioned him out to the balcony, where she had put the stool on which he sat eating an hour earlier. He sat and she wrapped a towel around his shoulders, avoiding touching his left arm and shoulder. There was just something _too_ alien about it for her to process right now.

There was silence on the balcony, broken only by the soft sounds of the clippers cutting through his hair. Gaby concentrated on the job at hand. It had been a long time since she'd cut any man's hair—or her own for that matter—and she didn't want it to look even messier than before. She cut the sides as evenly as she could and clipped the top so it was a bit longer. It was far from professionally smoothed out like she was accustomed to seeing on him, but it worked for the time being.

Once done, she swept her hands over his neck to get as many of the hairs away as possible. They fell through the cracks in the balcony to the balcony below but she didn't care. The room under them was empty anyway. With his cleaned jaw and hair, he resembled the man she remembered, if only at a glance.

"There," she said softly in English. They had at least three common languages between them. Russian had gotten her through to him in the first place, but they had both silently agreed to switch to English. It had less ties to a nation that had chewed them up and spit them out.

"Thank you," Illya replied, his back stiff. He spun around on the top of the stool, their eyes almost level. This all felt new to him, and it left Gaby trembling for what once was and the unknown that lay out before them.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, pressing her hand against his forehead. His skin was warm. She remembered how it was to regain her memories: layers of them crisscrossing over each other and getting confused, countless hours and headaches trying to piece them together and yet, it wasn't a complete puzzle. Even now.

He didn't answer right away. His eyes, cold and hard like they had prison gates in front of them, searched her face, looking for answers. "I am not sure," he spoke finally. "Everything I remember is…patches, not complete picture."

She nodded, trying to ignore how his voice struck sparks in her, enlightening faded memories. She tried forgetting how she drank a bottle of vodka, fueling her hatred and rage at Russia and taking it out on him. She had been very drunk, but she knew exactly what she was doing when she asked him to dance, slapped him and feigned innocence, when she tackled him to the floor. It was mostly him throwing his weight around so she wouldn't hurt herself, and landed with broken furniture and her straddling his torso. Her anger simmered and something between them changed in that moment. The light was soft, she could feel his hands, enormous in comparison to her ribs, her hips, and then the alcohol caught up to her and she remembered waking the next morning full of regrets.

She tried to not think of all of that in the light from the sunset, the sweet air…

"What happened to you?" Illya asked finally, reaching his right hand up toward her face. She fought the instinct to move back, and barely felt his feather-light touch across her cheek. He could tell she was conflicted…he was too. He barely had any solid memories of his time before the Winter Soldier, and yet he remembered her. Her face was unchanged entirely, except for her eyes. Whatever young, fiery flames that had once lived behind their dark irises had snuffed out and been replaced with an iceberg.

Gaby leaned into his touch ever so slightly, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments before shaking her head and opening them. "It doesn't matter." She was focused on helping him. She had her old life back, she was in control of her present, of her future. He was lost, like she had been, and she was determined to help him.

"You look the same," he protested, taking his hand back. She was sad to lose its warmth. "What year is it?"

She was not surprised he was confused about the year. Even though he had been out on a mission, it is possible his handlers hadn't told him the year, thinking it didn't matter, or they had and he was just reeling from the lifetime of years swirling around his head. "2016," she replied.

His brow furrowed. "You should look far older than you do."

She almost laughed. Something dim flickered behind her eyes instead. "As should you," she said gently. "Let's get inside. We don't want to cause unnecessary attention."

He didn't protest to that, moving swiftly and bringing the stool with him, placing it down next to its companion. "What do we do now?" he asked.

She leaned on the counter opposite him, crossing her arms against the countertop and crossing her ankles. "I have an idea," she said slowly. "It's not a plan yet."

"What is it?"

It was so bizarre to be here with Illya, talking to him. He sounded the same, he now looked almost identical except for the metal arm. He noticed her staring and hurriedly pulled the long sleeve shirt on. It was a deep blue to match his eyes. She had gotten it without thinking about the similarities.

"I think we should go after the men who did this to you. The organization is obviously still around if you were working just over a month ago and—"

"Yes."

She was startled by how quickly he answered. She raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"I want to go after the monsters who did this to me." He clenched his left hand into a fist. She couldn't help but watch how the metal slid against itself seamlessly. "I have names of the men still alive."

Gaby was once again taken by surprise. "You do? How did you figure that out?"

His expression darkened. "After I saw you…I escaped my handler. He had much information."

She didn't press him farther. It wasn't her place to ask and his expression alone told her everything she did and didn't need to know. "Okay. We'll compile the names, use my resources…find these guys." She set her shoulders and nodded, affirming her role in this revenge plan.

Illya didn't question if she would be coming with him or not.

"Do you feel like…maybe talking about what you've been remembering?" she asked finally, once the silence had stretched out too much. With a little motion of her hand, they moved to the living room. She sat on the couch and he sat in the armchair. It looked tiny underneath him.

"I remember you and your face. Rings," he frowned.

"We were undercover agents for some time together. Our cover was often engagement or marriage," she offered. She didn't know if it would spark enough memories to fill some holes. It took her years to regain everything she held dear now.

"That makes sense." He furrowed his brows before continuing. "I know of my handler, I know he and others used a machine to wipe my memories and implant objectives into my head."

Gaby pulled her legs up onto the couch. At least she had never had something imprinted directly onto her brain before. It gave her a chill.

"I look the same because they would put me to sleep until they needed me again. It was so cold…it was some kind of ice machine. They were Russian." He said it darkly, like he couldn't imagine a greater injustice than to be put through something like this by his own home country.

"The men who took me were Russian too," Gaby said softly.

**February 19, 1981 – 2000 hours  
** **Moscow, Russia**

Gaby was undercover in Russia of all places. She had orders from the KGB and she was a fine soldier. She was currently having a drink in the political office with a young commander. He was attractive, which made this easier.

"Please, call me Alexei," he said with a smile.

"Call me whatever you like," she said with a smirk, "but my name is Gabriella."

He laughed. "So Gabriella, what do you do to serve the glorious advancement of the worker's paradise?"

"What do I do?" She frowned, pinching the bridge of her nose. Something felt sharp in her head. She stuttered a little. "I…I'm one of the twenty-eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi. The training is hard, but the glory of the Soviet culture and the warmth of my parents...my…parents…makes up for. No…no that's not right…" Her frown deepened and she grappled in her own mind for the truth. "I'm one of the twenty-eight Black Widow agents with the Red Room. The training is hard, but the glory of the Soviet Supremacy and the warmth of my parents… _all_ my parents makes up for…you'll have to excuse me."

Her head felt like it was burning. Alexei probably thought she was spewing nonsense, that she was having some sort of female troubles. She pressed her hands to her forehead and locked herself in the gold gilded bathroom.

She looked at herself in the mirror, a stranger.

Who was she?

**May 4, 2016 – 2000 hours  
** **London, England**

Gaby told him a little of what happened to her. She was taken a month after him by the Soviets, taken into a special program called Red Room where they trained women. Men always underestimated women. They trained her, they spent months grooming her, brainwashing her slowly to think that the memories they layered on top of her history was real. She trained and killed and became the best of them. She was so good that they granted her a special serum that gave her longevity, made her heal faster, and gave her heightened senses. By the time she was out in the field, she thought she was a ballerina…she spent decades juggling the ballerina in her and the Black Widow in her.

"It was child's play compared to what happened to you," she mentioned, wrapping her arms around her knees. "The Red Room was demolished and they cut all ties with the Black Widows. The rest died. I survived, joined the rebellion in Hungary and…well, the rest is history."

She didn't want to talk his ear off, but he seemed attentive.

"I wish I could remember things in such detail as that," he said once he realized she would speak no more of her past.

"You may not want to."

"I want to remember you."

She sighed and tucked hair behind her ear. "It is selfish of me to say that I want you to remember me."

"No. You saw me in America, you let me go, you started all of this. I now know some of my past because of you. I cannot thank you enough."

"We've met before," she said, untangling her legs and standing. "In 1995, we crossed paths. You wore your mask the whole time…I didn't know who you were. Everyone had heard of the Winter Soldier, but you were a myth."

"I still am," he said, almost like a joke.

"Yes." She lifted her shirt a bit, showing the pinched skin from the bullet wound, two inches to the left of her belly button and down just a bit. "You shot me clean through. I survived. But you intrigued me even then. I wondered who was under the mask." She let her shirt drop. "I could have never guessed it would be Illya Kuryakin."

He looked at her sadly and they stayed that way for a short amount of time.

"You must be exhausted," she said finally. "You can use my room, I'll sleep on the pull-out couch."

"I can't let you do that," he protested.

"Yes, I can. Don't argue with me. Your big metal arm doesn't scare me." She waved her hand toward the door next to the bathroom. "I'll wake you in a few hours and we can start finding those bastards."

**August 11, 1992 – 0900 hours  
** **Philadelphia, Pennsylvania**

"Please don't do anything rash." The voice belonged to the man who suddenly appeared and sat opposite her at the café table. He was in his sixties, with greying hair, a smart suit and a sharp jawline.

He was familiar, but Gaby had only been free of the KGB for three years and a lot of her memories were still fragmented. "Napoleon Solo," she said slowly.

"Good, you remember me."

"American. Cowboy." She frowned at that. "We used to work together."

"Quite right, my dear." He ordered a coffee as the waitress came by. "I noticed you back ten years. Saw some surveillance photos. Couldn't believe my eyes."

Memories swarmed her thoughts. Solo was part of the trio that made up U.N.C.L.E. He and she were close, but not as close as she and the Russian. And…the Russian, he was taken. She and Solo searched and found nothing of him. _He must be dead_. She was taken. She forgot all about him.

"You thought I died. Like Illya," she said plainly.

He paused and cleared his throat. "Red Peril…yes, I assumed someone was targeting our team. The world was falling apart. Not long after you disappeared, U.N.C.L.E. moved to America. Then it became corrupt and I was left without a job."

"I'm sorry," she said because she couldn't think of anything else to say. His words were emotionally driven, but she couldn't relate to them. Not yet.

"I hear you're out of a job, too. Thank you," he said to the waitress, giving her a winning smile. She was young enough to be his granddaughter but she blushed and folded to his flattery.

"Yes," she said. She'd been twiddling her thumbs, trying to make sense of her past so she could make something of her future. But the world was over the Cold War. It was all she knew…she didn't know what to do from here on out.

"Good. There's someone I want you to meet."

Half an hour later they were walking into a small skyscraper. She was underdressed, but no one batted an eye because Solo had a reputation of some kind. She could guess what it was.

They met a man in his forties who looked just like every other man in his forties.

"Ah, Solo, good to see you," he said, warmly embracing Napoleon.

Solo patted him on the back then stepped aside to reveal Gaby. "Charles Waverly, this is Gaby Teller."

" _The_ Gaby Teller? The lost agent my uncle never shut up about?" Charles said, raising his eyebrows.

"The very same," Solo said.

Gaby and Charles shook hands. "Nice to meet you," she said politely. "And why am I here?"

Charles laughed. "Right to the point. Well, Miss Teller, I'm following in my uncle Alex's footsteps. I'm creating my very own spy network."

**May 5, 2016 – 0700 hours  
** **London, England**

Gaby could barely sleep, but she managed to catch a few hours of fitful tossing and turning before she decided enough was enough. Not wanting to wake Illya just yet, she started a pot of coffee and took a quick shower. If he slept as poorly as she did, she probably woke him up with the latter, but he seemed more than ready to start going after the men who did this to him that she didn't think he would be upset about being woken.

She wrapped herself up in a towel after squeezing out her hair and knocked on her bedroom door. Illya opened it a moment later, fully dressed in the clothes she had bought him yesterday.

"Good morning," she said. She was still rocked by his appearance—reappearance—in her life. But she tried not to focus on it and just think of the plan ahead of them. If she stopped to really think about what it meant to find Illya alive again, she wouldn't be able to keep it together.

He echoed her greeting.

"There is coffee in the kitchen. I'll be right out." She slipped into the room. The bed was rumpled, but not enough to suggest a night of tossing around. Either that meant he slept deeply or not at all.

Shaking her head— _He is a grown man, Gaby, he can handle himself_ , she told herself—she pulled on clean clothes. Simple jeans, t-shirt and socks, and she French braided her wet locks to keep it out of her face.

There was a bowl of cereal sitting on the dining room table when she stepped out. Without a word, she sat at the head of the table, staring at the Winter Soldier files before grabbing her laptop and pulling it toward her.

Illya walked into the room with another bowl and two mugs hooked on metal fingers. He set the mugs down and slid a cup to her. "I hope you don't mind," he said, lifting the bowl of cereal in his hand as he sat.

"Not at all." She took the mug and breathed in the steam before setting it down to her right, not wanting to burn her tongue this early in the day. She then sat back and dug into her cereal as the laptop started up and encoded itself.

They sat and ate and sipped in silence for a few minutes. It was surprisingly comfortable, as if they'd been doing this for years.

If Gaby let herself think for just a moment, to let slip what she'd been feeling since she realized the Winter Soldier was Illya Kurayakin, the situation would be entirely different. She wanted to laugh and cry and gather him up and never let him go. It was impossible to think he would have the same reaction to her now than he used to. He barely had his most recent memories back; she didn't want to force him into remembering her. He had enough people telling him what to do for the past fifty years.

"So, those names," she said, motioning over the top of the laptop to the yellow legal pad sitting there. "If you could write them down, I can do a search for them through some contacts. It may take a while, but we can find them."

He nodded, putting aside an empty cereal bowl and grabbing the paper and a pen hidden behind the computer. As he scribbled on the pad, she typed in three layers of passwords and finally was able to use her laptop.

Standing, she grabbed the two cereal bowls and deposited them in the kitchen sink before returning to the table, grabbing her encrypted cell phone on the way.

Illya was still writing the names—he was writing slowly in the Roman alphabet, as if his brain had forgotten how, and considering he didn't do much writing in the past fifty years, Gaby wasn't surprised he was struggling—so she dialed up Waverly and waited, knowing it was a bad time to call considering the time zone difference.

He answered however. "Gaby, do you know what time it is?"

"Eight in the morning," she said matter-of-factly.

"Ha, ha, very funny." He grunted, probably sitting up in bed. "What can I do for you?"

"I…came across some names of people connected to the Winter Soldier. I need remote access to the database for just a little while. And don't worry, I've encrypted everything already," she added.

"Gaby, you've known me for twenty-six years, when have I ever worried about you?"

"Touché," she shrugged, gazing at Illya through her eyelashes. "I am sorry for waking you, it's just time sensitive and very important to me."

"One of these days I'm going to retire," he grumbled. "I am an old man, you know."

"Sixty-seven is not that old," Gaby insisted. "I should know, considering I'm seventy-eight. Technically."

" _Technically_ ," Waverly echoed with a chuckle. "I've never seen any seventy-eight year old who looks like you."

"Flattery will get you everywhere." She thought fondly for a moment about Alexander Waverly, who she saw very often in Charles. It was a bittersweet feeling, knowing Alex died not knowing what happened to her; she hadn't been able to say goodbye, to thank him for saving her life, for getting her out of East Berlin.

"Do you have a pen?"

"Yes," she lied.

"Okay. The access code is 233JA89000HRP. It'll be active for the next ten minutes so get in fast. Stay as long as you'd like. Just don't get me into trouble," he cautioned.

Gaby chuckled. "When do I ever?"

"I can name a few times."

"Thank you, Charles," she said softly.

"Anytime."

She disconnected and immediately logged into the database system of Waverly's network and typed in the access code from memory. Without worrying about time sensitivity, she sat back and Illya handed her the pad of paper.

"These are the names. There are a dozen of them."

She nodded and took the paper. "We should be able to find them, even if they've hidden themselves well. It just may take a while." She paused to read through the names. She stopped at one and pointed. " _This_ is one of the names you got?"

Illya nodded. "Yes. Do you know of him?"

Gaby sat back in her chair, feeling completely stumped. "Yes. Patya Lagunov…he was involved in the Red Room…with the people who took me as well."

Illya frowned and sat forward. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am very sure," she nodded. "I killed him myself. After I defected."

"So he is dead." Illya shrugged. "Good, let us find the others."

She wordlessly drew a line through Patya's name and entered in the others in Waverly's database. This couldn't be as simple as the same person being involved in both the Red Room and the program that created the Winter Soldier. Could it be a coincidence? Probably not. She'd lived far too long to believe in coincidences.

**June 14, 1963 – 2000 hours  
** **Safehouse, outside of Istanbul**

"You should be more careful," Gaby chided as she cleaned the blood from his brow. He insisted on her medical attention over the professionals.

"I had to protect you," Illya objected.

Gaby sighed. "I can take care of myself, Illya. We are both spies here."

"I know." Sensing her aggravation, he caught her hands between his and gazed down at her, his eyes unguarded.

It was always off-putting in the most exciting of ways when he looked at her like that. Her breath caught in her throat.

"I have been doing this longer and I am…stronger."

"I know that," she said, trying to hold onto her stubbornness but faltering. "You worry for me. I worry for you. We shall continue like this for a while, don't you think?"

He smiled softly. "Probably. But I will always be close by if you need me. You know this."

"Mhm," she hummed, tugging her hands away and putting white tape strips over the small cut above his eyebrow. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"I should be fine." His voice was low and soft and flew right to the core of her, causing a fluttering in her stomach. He was perched on the arm of a couch, closing the height gap between them to something more reasonable.

"That wasn't what I asked," Gaby said, her eyes lingering on his lips. They had been here far too often, and she wasn't going to let the situation pass her by. Not now.

She pushed herself up on her toes, her lips pressing against his. They were soft, softer than she'd thought, and he responded to her touch positively. She had worried, knowing what happened on the last mission, when she had _betrayed_ him and Solo.

Not now, never again. They were on the same team.

She stepped closer, between his knees and slid one of her hands up and over his shoulder, gripping the back of his neck lightly. She felt his hand like fire through her dress, over her hip, his arm following to circle around her, pulling her closer. She made a muffled surprised sound and he pulled back with a smile hovering on his face.

"We have waited a long time for this," he said with a laugh that never quite left his throat.

Gaby nodded, her eyelids heavy. "Yes we have. And I refuse to be interrupted this time." She kissed him again, harder and more hurriedly, almost knocking him back. She stood on her tip-toes and wrapped both her arms around his neck, wanting nothing more than to have as much of them touching as possible.

**May 5, 2016 – 0800 hours  
** **London, England**

"Have you remembered anything new?" she asked after she had set up the printer on the dining room table. This information was too sensitive to send over wirelessly.

Illya hesitated. He was busying himself looking through the files she had on him, in case there was some clue that sparked his memory in a way to help them with their plan. "Yes," he said finally. "I don't dream anymore. I _remember_. It is hard to piece together once I am awake. It mixes together."

She nodded, sitting down and watching the search bar inch toward 100%. It was at 95% at the moment. "That happened to me. I remembered a lot while I was awake too, and that's mostly how bits and pieces come back to me now. Eventually your brain will be able to make sense of a timeline and it will start coming back more cohesively."

Gaby was still focusing on the mission at hand. She would face her emotions later, when she had better control of them. Perhaps without Illya in front of her to see her being weak. She was supposed to be helping him, not traumatizing him with her own breakdown.

"I remember these mostly." He waved a hand over the files. "Most of them I remember vividly. Along with some others that weren't connected to me. I remember the programing they gave me for each one, and the actual acts."

Gaby had blood on her hands as well—more than she cared to admit right now but enough that she had come to terms with it long ago—but she had been in her right mind when she took all of those lives. "You're not to blame for what they forced you to do. You're not a monster," she said, not really thinking before the words came out.

He frowned and sat back, meeting her eyes. They were intense and clearer than the previous night when they had been filled with confusion. "That is not what I mean. I killed many people before becoming _this_ —" he lifted his metallic arm "—it was just what I did. I was a spy and a soldier, it came with the position. I was not made a monster by killing people. Forcing me to kill people without my consent of will…I feel like they have violated my soul and they must pay for those actions."

"Of course," Gaby said. She opened her mouth to say more, but the computer beeped, calling the attention of both of them. Rather than relay information to him, she pushed the computer toward him and pulled her chair from the end of the table to the side. "Here we go."

It took them over an hour to look over the files. Four of the names were still in Russia in high points of authority. Two had died—not counting Patya—and the other five had been moved across the world with new identities, living happy lives with families and without consequences.

With all the information printed, they laid out the statistics sheets of the nine still living. Standing back, with arms crossed, they each started deducing the best way to approach the multiple assassinations.

"This may be easier than I was thinking," Illya said finally.

"It always looks easier on paper," Gaby said, glancing up at him. She had to strain her neck. She'd forgotten how tall he really was. "But we were both spies once. We'll figure it out."

**May 5, 2016 – 1900 hours  
** **Above the English Channel**

It took most of the day to work out how to best go after all of them. With the help of Waverly—Gaby baited him in saying she'd be taking out numerous men who were involved with atrocious acts during the Cold War, which was 100% true, she just neglected to mention she'd be working with the Winter Soldier—she got a private jet so she wouldn't have to worry about making a fake passport for Illya.

They also were equipped with weapons and body armor. The plane was made for this sort of thing and was filled with all of these things without needing to be asked. Which was good. Gaby didn't want to have to explain why she needed men's body armor as well.

Once all suited up—Illya had taken the liberty of cutting off the left arm of his working outfit so that his targets would know exactly who was taking their lives—they looked like a force to be reckoned with. Gaby was small, but compact and had speed and flexibility on her side, not to mention the _look_ in her eye which told anyone she would kill them instantly without remorse. Illya was, and always had been, physically intimidating, and even more so now with the all black outfit and robotic arm.

If she were a bad guy, she would run when she saw them.

"Stealth will be important," she said, knowing how loud Illya used to get when it came to missions like this in the past. However, that was before he became the ghost known as the Winter Soldier.

"Yes," Illya replied, making sure to take weapons with silencers and weapons made for close combat. He refused to kill anyone without them seeing his eyes as he did it. "No snipers."

She frowned. "It would make things easier for extraction. I've done as much research as I could in this short amount of time but…there could be security details on these men that I've overlooked."

Illya shook his head firmly. "Close kills only."

She opened her mouth to speak but closed it before saying anything more about it.

"You do not have to come with me if you don't want to. Not until we get to Russia," he offered.

"I'll come with you," she said. "I'll be close by."

**May 6, 2016 – 0100 hours**  
**Berlin, Germany  
** **Home of Josef Riemelt (formerly Afanasy Kuklov)**

He was divorced from his third wife. They chose him first because his children wouldn't be spending time with him. Illya wanted to kill the man, not the children.

Gaby slipped through the back door first and disabled the alarm. She cut the landline wires and slipped into the bedroom without making a sound. She took his phone, unplugged the lamp beside the bed, and checked everywhere but under his pillow for a gun. He was an old man but his children were all under ten. She scrunched up her nose in disapproval and stepped back as Illya joined him. She stood near the door and crossed her arms. Illya walked over to the window and slowly slid the window shut. The click of it closing roused the man in the bed.

"Wha—hrmph," he mumbled.

Illya made a point of walking to the end of the bed and kicking the wooden frame.

The man woke fully this time. "What? Who's there?" He spoke in German. His accent was quite good, but Gaby could hear the Russian undertones.

Kuklov scrambled for his glasses and pulled on the lamp string. "Shit," he hissed. He shoved his glasses on and sat up, only to scramble back at the sight of the moonlight hitting Illya's left arm.

"Oh god," he said, instantly resorting to Russian.

Gaby took no pleasure in this, and she knew Illya didn't either. It was an evil that must be done; they didn't have to _enjoy_ taking these men's lives, as long as they were no longer on this earth.

"You do remember me," Illya said his voice calm and even. He clasped his gloved hands together in front of him.

"Y-yes. Please, I'm not that person anymore. I swear!"

"Are you not Afanasy Kuklov?"

"Yes. I mean! I was, I left that life behind. Please, I'm an old man, you don't have to do this."

Illya sighed. This was the same thing he went through with Kerchenkov. Were all of these men so blind to the pain inflicted upon him and countless others? They weren't apologizing for what they had done; they were merely begging for their lives.

"Just because you change your name and move to a new country does not erase what you've done in the past," Illya said, pulling out his pistol. Kuklov said one or two more words of pleas before the trigger was pulled and he fell back on the bed. Illya heaved a sigh and slid the silencer in a pouch while he slipped the gun in the holster on his thigh.

Gaby said nothing but followed him out of the house, making sure to close the doors and lock them from the outside—a skill she learned and utilized from the Red Room—before they made their way silently back to the airport. It took them little less than an hour and a half to land, find the man, kill him and return.

Once in the plane, she gave the pilot the coordinates to the next destination. He said they would leave in a few hours, and they were welcome to get a hotel nearby or stay in the cabin in the hanger.

"Illya," Gaby said softly as she joined him once again. He was already looking at the next target, who was in Hungary.

He said nothing, but looked up at her to acknowledge that he had heard her.

"Are you okay?" she asked finally, settling in the seat opposite him. She _had_ to ask, no matter how he would end up taking the question that so many people hated.

"I don't understand how these men live with themselves," he said, sweeping a hand over the photos in front of him. "When I was with the KGB and killed or tortured anyone it was because I thought it was for the greater good. But I made mistakes. I killed wrong people before and I feel that weight on me. Even now, when I am not fully myself."

She sighed and leaned forward, putting a hand on top of his. "It's difficult to figure out other people's heads. I wish I had a better answer for you than that."

He ran his left hand over his face and rubbed the back of his neck. "I feel as if I can move on after all these men are dead."

"I can help with that," she said, trying to sound hopeful. "The pilot needs rest. He invited us to stay here or to go to a hotel for a few hours. If we leave before the body is found, it should be safe."

"Okay."

Thirty minutes later, dressed in civilian clothes, they got a hotel room. Out of habit, Gaby got one, but it had two beds. It wasn't fancy, but it was fair and clean. It had been a long time since she'd spent a night in her home country.

Having no doors between them and no pajamas to speak of, she pulled off her jeans and bra and kept on her underwear and t-shirt. It would have to do. Dragging her hands through her hair, she joined Illya at the table under the window. He had pulled out the nips of alcohol left in the small fridge.

She took one and downed it in one gulp. She didn't get drunk easily, but the flavor brought back memories.

This time, she didn't care about staring at his arm and where it met with flesh. "Does it hurt?" she asked, pointing.

"Not really," he said, moving his shoulder. It moved slightly different than a flesh arm and shoulder but the way he moved it made it look as natural as anything. "It has had many upgrades. It used to be very crude but now it is high quality."

Gaby sipped on another nip. "Can I touch it?" She didn't know why she had to ask, but it felt appropriate.

Illya, if he found it amusing or silly, didn't say anything. He held out his left hand palm up. She shifted in her chair and leaned forward. The shape of the hand was almost identical to what his flesh hand looked like. She was expecting the metal to be very cold to the touch, but it was pleasant. Not as warm as flesh, but it didn't give her a chill. She figured there must be many wires and tubes inside keeping it from getting too cold or too hot and damaging it or the skin around the shoulder joint implant.

Illya wrapped his fingers gently around her wrist. "Is not so bad," he said, his tone soft, as soft as she'd heard it since before he had disappeared all those years ago.

"No, it's not," she said. She found herself slipping emotionally back, back, _back_ , and pulled her hand away from his. Clearing her throat, she pushed her hair back from her face and downed the rest of the small bottle. "Have you, ahem, have you remembered anything else?"

So far, he had only mentioned the Winter Soldier memories and a little bit here and there. She was curious if he remembered anything else about her, but she didn't want to be selfish and ask outright.

Illya saw right through her. "Have I remembered anything about you? Is that what you mean?"

She flushed, something she hadn't done naturally in a long time. She feigned blushing often, but it had been a while…then she remembered who was in front of her. Metal or no metal arm, he was still Illya… "Yes, that is what I mean." There was no use denying it now.

"That night you found me, I was asleep and remembered Istanbul," he said slowly and deliberately.

Gaby swallowed. "Do you remember Solo now?"

"A little."

"He never stopped searching for us." She bit the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit.

"Why are you changing the subject?"

"I am not."

"You are." He stood then and moved closer, towering over her even more so than usual.

"Well, what do you want me to say?" She ignored his line of sight and pushed an empty nip bottle with the tip of her finger.

"Say what you've been wanting to say since you found me in that alley, since you took off my mask in Washington DC." He wasn't demanding, but he was pushing, pushing her off the well-guarded edge she had gathered herself upon.

She took a breath and found it shaking. "I can't." She gulped and looked up at him, pleading with him not to ask again.

"Tell me, please. It will help me." He wasn't just saying that to get her to speak. He thought it would be helpful to have some emotion driven at him, now that he remembered the feelings he once had for her, ones that had been erased against his will.

"I can't tell you," she said, standing swiftly and forcing him to step back. "I can't tell you anything because once I tell you how much you mean to me and how much I've needed you I won't be able to stop!" Her voice rose steadily as she spoke until she was yelling. She poked her finger against his bare chest and felt a burn behind her eyes. "I can't…" She stopped and shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. "I can't do this and be steady enough to help you kill all of these terrible men."

Illya closed the space between them and cupped her face in his hands. Tears rolled down her cheeks, warm and unbidden. "You do not have to help me kill these men. I need you to help me remember who I am. They will not do that, only you can do that."

She felt herself slipping. This was it. The dam was cracking, her fifty-plus years of training was going to fail her because someone she loved needed her. She closed her eyes and slowly lifted her hands to circle his wrists. "I love you," she said, words not spoken ever between them, but that didn't make them any less true. She opened her eyes so she could see the impact of what she was saying in his eyes. "I've always loved you, ever since the hotel room in Venice when you wouldn't dance with me. When you were taken I blamed myself and I hated myself for letting you go. I never stopped looking for you. When I saw that you were the Winter Soldier I…" The tears flowed freely now but she managed to keep her voice strong enough to continue, "…I couldn't let you go again. Meeting you the first time was terrifying and wonderful all at once. I need you. I've needed you for so long and I've been so lonely." A sob slipped out then and she collapsed against his chest, her hands clinging to his back.

Illya spoke soothing words in German, a comfort to her that she didn't know she needed, and smoothed a hand over her hair. She cried softly until she felt all used up, but didn't let him go.

"I know how much I loved you back then," he said gently. "I don't think I would have stopped if they hadn't made me forget."

Gaby cleared her throat and stepped back, wiping her face with her hands. "And now?"

"I don't know if I'm capable of love any more," he said honestly, "but if I am, I know of no other person I would want to be with. Even with my hazy and fragmented memories, I know what an amazing and beautiful person you are. I do not want to leave you again."

"Are you sure? You don't know what kind of person I have become."

"It doesn't matter to me. I…I remember somehow that you treated me like a person and cared for me during the first mission we had together when everyone else treated me like a machine, a tool." He wiped her face with his thumbs. "Here I am again, a weapon, a machine. You can help make me a man again."

Gaby felt close to sobbing again, but she nodded. "Okay."

They only needed one bed, sleeping close to each other, scared and broken souls growing accustomed to closeness and kindness once again. It would take them a while, but at least they were on the right track.

**May 25, 2016 – 01500  
** **New York City, New York**

With the last of the Russians killed—the last of them, the ones still in Russia, were the hardest and stealth had been basically tossed out the window straight away—they were finally _free_. Illya could now move on from his past and Gaby could face her emotions and continue her quest of bringing him fully back to her. It would take years, but neither of them were going anywhere anytime soon.

She sipped her coffee outside a café and he drank lemon water.

"So what now?" he asked.

Her hand was resting on top of his gloved metallic hand on the table. She shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know. I think we deserve some time to ourselves. I can tell Waverly I need a longer break. We can go to one of my safe houses and just… _be_ for a while. I don't think I can ever leave Waverly or his business but I rarely asked for a day off for over twenty years. I think he'll understand."

Illya smiled slightly and nodded. "Time off…without being put on ice. What a novel idea."

"Yes it is, and one you deserve as well. You need time to recuperate." She squeezed his hand. "And afterwards…who knows. Maybe we'll be partners again."

He blinked, thought about the idea and nodded. "Perhaps."

She brought her cup to her lips and watched him over the edge. He had a long way to go, but together they could bring his memories back. She was sure of it. "But as of _right now_ , I believe we have a hotel room waiting for us. And…you still owe me a dance, Mr. Kuryakin. You're fifty-three years late."

He laughed at that, not quite the laugh she knew he had in him, but it still warmed her heart and her cold bones to hear. They stood in unison and she put down some cash, not letting go of his hand. He trailed behind her until they got to the street, where she slid her hand around his forearm and walked beside him.

"We can do this, can't we? A life without secrets and assassinations?" She didn't mean forever, but felt like he knew that.

"Yes, little chop shop girl," he said, pausing for a moment to run a finger along her jawline. "Together we can make our lives our own again."


End file.
